Hitler and his God

Faith

What held together this fantastic, paranormal world of Hitler, which was more and more becoming the world in which lived the whole German nation, was faith and the will power which faith generates. Hitler squarely stated that “faith was all”. Faith in Aryanhood and in Germany’s greatness was the primary condition for all those who belonged to the völkisch movement and indeed for reactionary Germany as a whole. The Führer had become identified with the Volk, and faith in Germany became faith in Hitler. “Hitler was not a politician who based himself on a programme and who had to justify his actions to the people, but the redemptive figure of an exoteric cult whose aim was to liberate the world from the Jews … Strictly speaking the Germans did not need to know anything. They only had to have faith.” 775

“I have taught you how to have faith: now give me your faith!” Hitler shouted. And he said on another occasion: “When one day in future centuries History, no longer influenced by the pros and cons of a controversial time, will critically examine these years of the National Socialist emergence, then she cannot but conclude that what happened was a wonderful victory of faith against the elements of the supposed realistically possible.” 776 The last, emotional occasion on which Speer met Hitler in the Führerbunker, when Hitler knew that the man who once had been his “unrequited love” did everything possible to counteract his “Nero order” to destroy Germany, he asked: “Do you still hope for a successful continuance of the war or is your faith shattered?” “Once again Hitler reduced his demand to a formal profession of faith that would be binding upon me”, writes Speer. “If you could at least hope that we have not lost!” said Hitler, while the continuous Russian bombardment made the bunker shake. “You must certainly be able to hope, that would be enough to satisfy me.” And Speer’s reply was, after a few hours of inner struggle: “Mein Führer, I stand unreservedly behind you.” Hitler’s eyes filled with tears, writes Speer. 777

Only faith could work the miracle for which the Führer was sent into this world as the absolute “Strong One from Above”, the “Being of Light”. His mission gave him the right to use the Volk as his instrument and to sacrifice it if necessary, as it gave him the right to exterminate “ruthlessly” anyone who thwarted his objectives or stood on the opposing side in the final struggle.

These very common truths were confirmed by Hitler time and again. He fumed against the military men who knew the meaning of the words “discipline” and “obedience” but not of “faith”, as the former were military virtues and the latter a religious one. Where the generals saw their military operations as a matter of planning and efficiency, Hitler saw them as exercises in faith, infallible if the faith was entire. No one could ever live up to his expectations except by dying in the Hitler faith, and in the end he will roar in his bunker that all have betrayed him for lack of faith. The thousands and thousands of improvised crosses or helmets on a rifle butt in the snow-covered Russian steppes, the green lands of the Champagne and the grey, desolate fields of Germany were planted above the bodies of soldiers who had betrayed him, the Führer, by their lack of faith.